5 times Bruce held Tony
by blindkitten
Summary: And then another time. Or, how Bruce became part of the Stark-Potts family. Pepperony and science-bros friendship/family.
1. Chapter 1

_I'm still working on Guilty, for those of you reading that, so don't worry! Still, this needed to be written!_

_Disclaimer: I don't own the Avengers. That would be totally awesome, yes, but it's not real. Like this llama behind me._

1.

The Tony is sick. He denies it, of course, but his 103.5 fever and inability to walk in a straight line beg to differ.

Bruce has only been hanging around the tower for about a month now, and he's hardly used to having a friend for once, much less one like Tony. They spend long times together in the lab, debating the workings of quantum physics and playing with random chemicals, but there's a certain unspoken minimum distance that two grown men with green monster or titanium armor sized personal space issues must always have.

Still, he's a doctor. In physics, but he's made do anyway, and Tony really, really doesn't want to go to a real one.

That's how they end up awake, Bruce and Tony and Pepper, at three in the morning, trying to get some broth down Tony's swollen throat. "I never get sick," Tony informs him, trying to wriggle under the covers, shivering violently.

"Well, you are now," Bruce says, and makes another dive with the spoon.

"This isn't working," Pepper says, coming back from her quest for a bucket of cool water and some cloths. Bruce wants to throw the bowl of soup and scream at her for being so damn obvious. Instead he sets it down calmly and looks at her.

"I thought we were making some great headway," he says sarcastically, because years of practice have taught him that sarcasm is actually a very satisfying substitute for raging.

It's obvious that Pepper lives with Tony, because she doesn't stop doing what she was before, she just tosses a little look over her shoulder that makes Bruce want to crumble into shameful dust and stop existing. "Could you sit him up?" she asks, very calmly.

Bruce is too scared to argue. He struggles for a moment with Tony, who is worse than dead weight and extremely heavy. After the fifth time Tony elbows him in the face, he has to stop and take deep breaths. He looks at Pepper, who just raises an eyebrow at him. And even though he knows this is going to be awkward and if Tony remembers anything about this night, he'll be mad, he goes ahead and crawls into the bed, drags Tony into his arms and lets his head fall back against his shoulder. "Sorry, Tony, I'm on her side," he mutters quietly, and stays very still as Pepper finally gets the soup into Tony where it belongs.

It seems natural to just stay there while Pepper expertly places the cool rags to bring down Tony's raging fever, and by then Tony has fallen asleep, shivering and mumbling and miserable. And it's really not all that awkward. So Bruce stays, and Pepper, exhausted herself, curls up next to him, snuggling up to one of Tony's arms, her red hair tickling Bruce's cheek.

Amazingly, he manages to fall asleep like this, in a big dog pile, holding Tony in his arms.

2.

Pepper is gone for a business meeting. Bruce assumes this is no big deal, but that's up until he finds Tony on the sofa, wrapped in her worn pink blanket and dazed, but not asleep, despite the time.

By now, he's practically moved in. He occasionally goes somewhere else because he doesn't want to impose and he's becoming a part of the Stark-Potts family and he's not sure how to handle it. Touch is no longer a problem, because although he jumped out of his skin the first few times Pepper placed a hand on his shoulder, he's gotten used to her and even managed to spread this complacency to Tony, giving a few comforting touches in the quiet moments that Tony lets the façade fall.

He sits down on the sofa beside Tony. He can tell Tony is trying not to fall asleep because he starts a little every time his eyelids droop. Bruce has been sleeping most of this time, only got up for a glass of water, so he's not all that tired. "Want me to call Pepper?" he asks.

Tony shakes his head. "Don't want to bother her," he mumbles.

Bruce wishes he could record these moments, few and far between, and show them to anyone who tries to say that Tony is self obsessed. "Want me to stay?" he asks, even though he's not sure he can leave Tony like this and go back to bed if he tries.

Thankfully, Tony nods sleepily. "If that's ok."

"Want to talk about it?"

Tony rubs at his eyes, trying to keep them open. He shakes his head, a little delayed, and Bruce realizes that Tony really needs sleep. And though he's been teaching himself not to do anything, ever, without thinking about it, he reaches out impulsively and hugs Tony to his chest. Tony stiffens, and Bruce wants to tell him, "Oh, stop it, you stubborn self-destructive ass, I'm helping you," but he doesn't.

Still, Tony relaxes after a moment and lets it happen. "You need to sleep," Bruce says softly, and he feels Tony nod. "Don't worry, I've got you."

He rubs circles on Tony's back until he feels Tony's breathing even and decides that his friend is asleep. And he stays, keeping guard against the nightmares, glad that he can heal and comfort for once instead of destroy.

3.

Tony is often distracted. Usually it's because he has more important things to worry about, and anyway, he's still partially listening, it just takes him a moment longer than usual to respond.

Which is why, when he responds to one of Bruce's absentminded questions with a blank, "Huh?" every single one of the Avenger's attention is focused one hundred percent on him.

He looks queasy. Bruce knows this is bad, because he's seen Tony when he's sobbing on the inside or about to pass out with exhaustion or pain or sickness and he never looks queasy. He wonders sometimes if Tony actively practices how not to look queasy. The moment he sees the look on Tony's face, he starts moving closer.

Natasha sees it too, because she's gently crawling closer as well, hands out a few inches in a peacemaking gesture. "Tony, are you okay?" she asks, her tone communicating that she knows he's not, she's just trying to make a calm connection to keep him here while she determines what's wrong.

"I… I bought a ring," Tony manages, sounding nothing at all like Tony, and collapses. Everyone leaps, but it's Thor that catches him and lowers him to the floor, carefully and softly, because at the base of his loud nature, Thor is the most loving of all of them.

Bruce slides over to Tony, skidding to a stop. He doesn't know what's going on. He's seen Tony bad, very bad, but never like this. Never this openly or numbly. He gives him a once over but doesn't see anything wrong, but that only scares him more. He hates not understanding things, not knowing things. "Tony?" he asks hesitantly, but he doubts that Tony is with it enough to tell him what's wrong.

"W-what…" Tony breathes, and Bruce is panicking, because that was a stutter, and Tony does not stutter. "… what if she s-says no?"

Bruce is always trying to keep up with Tony, but this time he really, really doesn't get it. "What are you talking about?" Obviously, Tony's talking about Pepper. But he doesn't really get why Tony would entirely crumble over proposing. Sure, he knows that Tony's got a massive pit of self-hatred underneath the cover of megalomania, but he's never been this bad. He hides it when he gets this bad.

"In… Af… in the cave, s-she was… e-e-everything…" Tony chokes, looking at Bruce but not seeing.

Bruce feels bad about it, but he breathes a sigh of relief at this point. PTSD is something he knows, something he can deal with. He looks up at Natasha and mouths, "Pepper." She understands instantly and moves away with a nod. Bruce pulls Tony away from Thor, communicating his thanks to Thor with a quick nod. Thor gets it as quickly as Natasha does, he allows them room, brushing back a worried Steve.

Bruce gently takes Tony's scattered limbs into his hands and pushes him so that his head comes between his knees, then circles him with his arms, pulling Tony's head to his shoulder and wrapping arms around his back and his knees. "It's alright, Tony, it's alright, just breathe," he whispers, supporting Tony as he trembles and dry heaves and tries to gasp his breath back into order. He strokes Tony's sweaty hair and waits for Pepper to come.

He hears he faintly in the doorway before she comes in, Natasha explaining what happened. Of course, she's pieced it together by now. Pepper clicks over to them in her heels, strides balanced and hurried. "Oh, boy," she says, sighing. She kneels and holds her arms out. "Come here, Tony."

Tony is too exhausted to really move, but he puts out an arm in a half-crawl to help Bruce while he hands him over to Pepper. Pepper makes sure he's steady, holds him close and then looks up to Bruce with a smile. "Thank you," she mouths, as though she already knows that this wasn't a favor, that Bruce would do this for Tony whenever it was needed.

They all give Tony and Pepper room and go out into the hallway, and Bruce feels dizzy as he hears himself say, "No one talks about this again. Ever."

No one argues.

4.

Waking up from the Hulk is never much fun. There's always that buzzing in his head and that wondering if he's destroyed New York again. Lately, when he wakes up, a disheveled Tony is always staring at him curiously and slightly impatiently. It puts more pressure on waking up quickly, but it's a nice change.

It's so nice that it hurts a little when he wakes to Steve instead. "Don't worry," he says quickly, as soon as Bruce starts. "Tony's… well, he's not in danger. He wanted to stay, but I had Pepper take him home."

Steve then fills him in, on what happened, on what the outcome was, and most importantly, the full bus that Tony wasn't fast enough to save. Bruce hurries to find Clint, who gives him a ride home. He runs to the elevator and curses it for not being fast enough. Pepper greets him with a somber smile. "He's… he's drinking, but at least he's calm," she tells him. "I think he needs you." Bruce wishes he knew their respective places in Tony's life as well as Pepper does, but he takes her word for it.

Tony is collapsed on the couch, cradling a bottle of scotch. He doesn't even look up when Bruce walks up to him and sits next to him. "My dad always thought I was a screw up," he slurs.

"Tony, you know that's not true."

"No. He was right. Screw up."

"Tony."

Tony looks up at him, watery-eyed. This is as close as Bruce has ever seen him crying. "Dad wouldn't be here now."

"I'm not your father, Tony," Bruce says, trying to sneak the bottle from Tony's hand.

"'S too bad."

"Tony, give me the bottle."

To Bruce's surprise, Tony does. He hands it right over, still half full, and then sinks his head into his palms and starts shaking. Bruce doesn't want to say he's crying, because Tony doesn't cry. But he's sure doing something similar. When he pulls his hands away, wiping it across his face, his face is wet.

Bruce's mind is blank for once, not over thinking anything, just mechanical motions putting the bottle on the table and then pulling Tony into his arms. He can still remember last time he did this on the same couch, but this time is different. They've both grown into this friendship, and Tony wraps his arms back around Bruce and shakes with silent crying. Bruce suspects that Tony never cries because he doesn't think anyone will hold him, that he deserves to be held in his moments of weakness.

"You're just fine, Tony," he whispers softly, because if he says it enough, Tony might finally believe it.

5.

It's been a year that Bruce has lived (officially) in the tower, and he's been hugged plenty by Pepper in good times and bad, hugged Tony several times in the worst of times, and it's stopped being such a big deal.

Which is why it's so strange when he hugs Tony after Tony fixes the lights in his room (he doesn't get wiring, he really doesn't) and Tony freaks.

Really freaks.

Bruce has to sit him down on the bed and ask him three times what's wrong.

"You've never just hugged me," Tony admits. "There's always something."

He won't look at Bruce, and Bruce watches him, the emotion in his eyes (with Tony you always have to look at his eyes for the truth) and wonders what it must be like, what kind of life Tony must have had that a casual hug means so much. He doesn't know what to say, because there's no way to react to this (besides maybe crying). So he puts his arm around Tony and pulls him close. "I'm here," he reinforces, and Tony nods.

"Yeah. Thanks."

_Plus one coming up! I thought it sort of deserved another chapter… and I didn't have time to fit it into this chapter. XD_


	2. Chapter 2

_Okay. So. We've been moving and I've had online classes and camp and blahdy blah blah and I seriously had, like… five different ideas for this final chapter. But then I ran with this one, because I like it. Hope that, after all this waiting, you do too._

_Also, I have no idea how long it's been since the latest Incredible Hulk and the Avengers, so I just avoided that topic. If there's a problem with time frame (and I gave up on Marvel-verse, too, for the sake of the story) just point it out and I'll apologize profusely._

_Disclaimer: I solemnly swear that I don't own anything._

After it happens, Bruce wonders how long it would take him to calculate the odds of running into a certain Betty Ross in the middle of New York. He does a quick estimate of New York's population density and the fraction of people that move away from New York in a year and then decides that the answer is, "This sort of thing only happens to me." He'd say it was karma from the destruction he's caused as the Hulk, but already that would be "that sort of thing."

Her reaction is priceless. He doesn't even notice her until she drops everything she's carrying and he stops to help her. Her hair is short and she's wearing sunglasses and a khaki blazer. She looks like a mom. Maybe it's a requirement to have kids.

Kids.

That thought is reeling in his head even as he blurts some random stuff about how long it's been and dazedly agrees to have coffee with her. What if she has had kids? Has she had kids? He doesn't dare to ask. He really, honestly, doesn't dare to say anything, which makes it awkward when they sit across from each other in a nearby café, saying nothing.

"So, I saw you in the news," she says slowly.

Saw the Hulk in the news. No one sees Bruce Banner in the news. Or anywhere, really. The Hulk casts such a damn big shadow. Bruce almost laughs. It's been surprisingly long since he's had such bitter thoughts about the Hulk. Suddenly, the happy times he's had lately seem like a fantasy. Some dream he's had to try to escape from the sucky reality of his life.

"You're… on a team," Betty continues lamely.

Bruce realizes that she's searching for things to say. He's not giving her many options. "Yeah," he grinds out. Once his tongue realizes it's still attached, he manages to continue. "Who would have thought the other guy was a team player, huh?" He knows that should have contained some humor, but his seems to have escaped somewhere. He'd like to follow it, to be honest.

"So… things are… better? For you?" Betty asks. She has a drink of some kind, though Bruce can't remember when she ordered it.

"Yeah," he says. It feels like a lie. It isn't though. He's been happy. Er. Than usual. He suddenly can't remember why.

"Do you live here now?" she asks. She seems to have noticed his sudden speaking disability, and her words are more nudging than awkward. Encouraging, almost.

"Yes. In New York. I live in New York." A city with a giant population density that he's wrecked twice now. The notion seems ridiculous. "Tony has a few extra rooms." Oh yeah. Tony is the reason he doesn't hate life so much. He almost pulls out his phone right then and there and calls his friend.

"Tony Stark?" Betty asks, surprised. "I can imagine he does, yeah." She chuckles. "I guess you two would have a few things to talk about, huh?" She sounds like she's trying to wrap her head around the two of them being friends, and suddenly even the possibility of their friendship being in doubt makes him want to cry. So he changes to topic with all the grace of a guy who spends all his time in a lab.

"You look so much like a mom," he says, because besides the fact that he really, really wants to see Tony, that's all he can think about.

She laughs. "Yeah. I have been for about a year," she says, and before he knows it, she's getting out pictures.

By the end, their conversation is almost fluid and they've exchanged numbers. He still gets back to Stark(-Potts) tower feeling like he's barely escaped with his life.

Tony's not home. He's profoundly disappointed, but at the same time, he's sort of relieved, because Pepper takes one look at him and asks, "What happened?" He doubts Tony would have even that much tact. So he sits and he tells Pepper exactly what happened, and she looks at him and nods.

"My great aunt was barren," she says, and he just stares at her.

"What?" he croaks.

"Sorry," Pepper says, putting up her hands and closing her eyes in the way that she does. It looks like she's switching modes. She shakes her head and looks at him. "I'm used to Tony, where you have to get his attention before you start speaking, so you start in the middle…" she trails off and waves her hands. Bruce smiles, because he knows exactly what she's talking about. "What I'm trying to say is, I get why you're upset. Betty represents everything you've lost. Your life, your old friends, your ability to have kids…"

His eyes prickle at the words. He finally dares to laugh at nothing funny, because Pepper can understand. He's never really thought about kids. Or the fact that he's unable to have them, because sex is sort of a prerequisite to that. "It is the kids that are bothering me, isn't it?" he asks, which is silly, because he should know. "I've never really cared about it, I don't know why it's so awful now." He finds himself wiping tears from his face. God, it's been a while since he's cried.

Pepper pulls her chair closer to him and puts an arm around his shoulder. "Everyone wants kids. It's natural for you to be upset when you see a woman you might have settled down with and _had _kids with if it weren't for everything else. Especially when 'everything else' is something devastating, like becoming a giant green monster when you're angry." He literally giggles, rubbing at his eyes. Words fail him, so he nods.

Pepper clicks her tongue sympathetically and shakes him a little. "It's going to be alright, you'll bounce back."

They sit there like that for a while. Pepper has to be the most patient person on the world. She doesn't move an inch while he sits there, frozen and crying. The only reason she finally leaves is because she hears Tony come home and moves to intercept. Bruce thinks he should follow her, but he can't bring himself to stand. It's like every muscle in his body has decided to take a holiday.

There's a small gap between when Pepper left and when Tony comes in, so Bruce figures she's explained everything. He's immensely grateful, because when Tony steps into the room, watching him with those surprisingly soft brown eyes and without so much as word, all he can say is, "Hey."

Tony snorts a little and comes right over to kneel beside Bruce and wrap his arms around him. Bruce returns the gesture and clings to Tony. Now he's really crying, sniffing and hiccupping and all.

"Sorry about the hypothetical kids," Tony says quietly.

Bruce laughs. "Why are you sorry?" The lump in his throat. "You're the closest I've got to them."

He practically feels Tony smile at that. "Isn't that enough to be sorry for?"

It's a struggle to untangle himself from Tony, but when he does, he looks at him and smiles. It figures that after half a day of misery, it only takes a few minutes of his friend's company before he stops feeling lousy. "Nah. If I had a son, I'd want him to be just like you."

Tony's face lights up like the sun. He sits on the floor and looks up, grinning like Christmas came early. "You're nuts," he says. "Do you realize what I was like as a kid?"

"Oh, you weren't _always _this immature? That's scary."

And they sit there laughing until Pepper comes in and sends them to bed.

_Um… review? Kthnxsbai? XD_


End file.
